Hegelianism

Hegelianism

Diversified philosophical movement that developed out of G. W. F. Hegel's system of thought. Four stages can be distinguished. The first consists of the Hegelian school in Germany in the period 1827–50. The school divided into three currents. The right, or “Old Hegelians,” sought to uphold Hegelianism's compatibility with evangelical orthodoxy and conservative political policies. The left, or “Young Hegelians,” interpreted Hegel's identification of the rational with the real in a revolutionary sense. The center preferred to fall back on interpretations of the Hegelian system in its genesis and significance. In the second phase (1850–1904), usually called Neo-Hegelian, the works of the center played a preponderant role. After Wilhelm Dilthey discovered unpublished papers from Hegel's youth in the early 20th century, there arose in Germany yet another movement; this third phase, the Hegel renaissance, stressed the reconstruction of the genesis of Hegel's thought. In the fourth stage, after World War II, the revival of Marxist studies in Europe finally thrust into the foreground the value of the Hegelian heritage for Marxism.

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Hegelianism 

the designation given to the idealist philosophical schools that grew out of the teachings of G. Hegel and developed his ideas.

Hegelianism arose in Germany in the 1830’s and 1840’s. In the course of debates on questions of religion, several tendencies appeared within the Hegelian school. The so-called right Hegelians, represented by K. Göschel, H. Hinrichs, and G. Gabler, interpreted Hegel in the spirit of religious orthodoxy and viewed his philosophical system as a rational form of theology. The opposing left Hegelians, or young Hegelians, including A. Ruge, B. Bauer, and L. Feuerbach, emphasized the decisive role of the personal, subjective factor in history, which they contrasted with the Hegelian world spirit. The “orthodox” Hegelians, such as K. Michelet and K. Rosenkranz, occupied the middle position, striving to preserve Hegel’s teachings in their “purity.”

K. Marx and F. Engels offered a critique of the young Hegelians in The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1845-46). H. Heine in Germany and A. I. Herzen and V. G. Belinskii in Russia attempted to go beyond young Hegelianism. The subsequent development of Hegelianism exceeded the bounds of the Hegelian school as such. A renewed interest in Hegel in bourgeois philosophy in the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century caused the appearance in many countries of various so-called neo-Hegelian tendencies.

M. F. OVSIANNIKOV